Movie review: Farrelly brothers' 'Hall Pass' poops out in the end

Friday

Feb 25, 2011 at 12:01 AMFeb 25, 2011 at 4:51 AM

If you’re not cool with broad caricatures and rampant stereotyping, you might want to distance yourself from the latest Farrelly brothers comedy, "Hall Pass," which features an array of off-color gags that can easily be divided into three distinct food groups: male anatomy, bowel movements and getting high.

Al Alexander

Married men are such dopes. They drink to excess, ignore their partner’s needs and daydream about how much better sex would be if they weren’t tied down. If you buy all that, the latest Farrelly brothers comedy, “Hall Pass,” surely will be preaching to the choir. But if you’re not cool with broad caricatures and rampant stereotyping, you might want to distance yourself from the siblings’ array of off-color gags that can easily be divided into three distinct food groups: male anatomy, bowel movements and getting high.

What’s missing from this alleged sex comedy, oddly enough, is sex. Everybody talks about it, but hardly anyone does anything about procuring it. Normally, that wouldn’t be a concern, but when the entire movie is built around the premise of husbands and wives declaring a one-week détente, in which each is free to have sex with whomever they want, it’s a problem.

But it’s far from the biggest affliction plaguing “Hall Pass,” as it meanders down a well-worn path of crude jokes, sexist attitudes and bumbling homophobic idiots. What’s most troubling is that “Hall Pass” finds the Farrellys regressing to the style of bawdy humor they originated back in 1990s with a succession of hits like “Dumb and Dumber,” “Me, Myself and Irene” and what many consider their “masterpiece,” “There’s Something About Mary.”

That would be great if that style of humor wasn’t so hopelessly out of fashion. In fact, the Farrellys’ early movies look almost prehistoric compared to the recent contributions Judd Apatow and Sasha Baron Cohen have made to the gross-out genre.

Still, the film is not without its occasional pleasures, namely the terrific cast. It’s a virtual who’s-who of top comedians brought together to form the equivalent of an all-star team. There’s Owen Wilson from the Ben Stiller and Wes Anderson camps, Jenna Fischer from “The Office,” Jason Sudeikis from “Saturday Night Live,” Christina Applegate from “Married, With Children” and Stephen Merchant, who, along with Ricky Gervais, created “The Office” and “Extras.” Toss in generous donations from recent Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins (“The Visitor”), the scene-stealing J.B. Smoove from “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and Red Sox legend Dwight Evans, and it’s easy to understand why “Hall Pass” is one of the more highly anticipated movies of the winter.

But it never satisfactorily comes to fruition. Instead, the flick is only entertaining in fits and starts, bogged down by the Farrellys’ insistence on indulging their affection for scatological humor. Sometimes it’s funny, like a scene in which Wilson is being rescued from a hot tub by two naked men displaying their twigs and berries in full-frontal glory. But most of the bits are merely crass and offensive, like a woman’s spastic colon erupting across a bathroom wall or Sudeikis taking a dump in a sand trap.

There are also shameful moments of gratuitous nudity in the form of curvy, Aussie newcomer Nicky Whelan, a babe so hot there’s no need to warm up the java she serves at the corner coffee shop. Little does she know that she’s also doubling as a piece of meat for the two horny husbands (played by Wilson and Sudeikis) to ogle and take mental pictures of to feed their masturbatory fantasies.

And the reason the boys are letting their fingers do the walking, so to speak, is because they’re not getting any at home from their fed-up wives played by Fischer and Applegate. No matter how hard Wilson’s Rick and Sudeikis’ Fred beg, their wives either claim to be too tired or simply feign being asleep. Only after Fred is arrested for massaging his “little friend” in the front seat of his Odyssey do the women realize that they need to immediately spice up their marriages. So, who do they turn to? Well, it’s none other than “The View’s” Joy Behar, playing a Tony Robbins-type marital expert who advises the gals to issue their men a “hall pass,” a no-questions-asked furlough that allows them to bed whomever they want for one week.

Now the fun begins, right? Wrong. The gimmick backfires on both the boys and the Farrellys, all four of whom have no clue about how to take advantage of the situation. All four, however, are adept at ineptitude. How else do you explain them coming up with something as dumb as men trying to score women by spending a night hanging at an Applebee’s in Providence?

I know, it’s supposed to be cute. And, perhaps, it is marginally, but it’s the first indication that the Farrellys and their two writing partners, Pete Jones and Kevin Barnett, aren’t willing to venture anywhere near moral complexity. Instead, they consistently go for the cheap laugh until late in the game, when they open the treacle flood gates, and sentimentality flows forth in a half-hearted attempt to wash away the memory of all the poop and penis jokes.

What doesn’t wane is the potent chemistry Sudeikis and Wilson generate. The two are great together, as they scheme and plot their whacked strategy for bagging babes. I even found myself occasionally enjoying the time spent with them. But what I craved even more were Fischer and Applegate, and the romantic adventures they experience when they and the kids head to Cape Cod for the week. Without even trying, the two beauties are immediately hit upon by two participants in the Cape Cod Baseball League. But it amounts to nothing more than repeated bouts of coitus interruptus, as the script never allows the ladies enough space to develop their characters and their relationships with their weekend beaus.

That holds true even when the women are with their husbands (Fischer with Wilson and Applegate with Sudeikis), with whom they behave like domineering shrews. Not cool, and not fun. It’s just a lot of ugly stereotypes being bandied about without purpose or meaning.

It’s disappointing for the viewer, but it’s even more disappointing to see the Farrellys groveling so desperately to regain the popularity they enjoyed before slipping into a decade-long rut after their last hit, “Shallow Hal,” in 2001. It’s like Cher still trying to squeeze into skin-tight pants. It just looks ridiculous. It also displays reluctance by the Farrellys to grow into more accomplished filmmakers. I know they have the talent to do it. The only question is: Do they know it?